I had my daughter when I was a teenager. Now my daughter is a teenager.

It’s fucking weird. Most of my friends still don’t have their first child yet. Here I am, with a kid, who is close to being a legal adult and moving out. She’s going to leave me and start her own life. I will still be in my 30s.

This has been some of the toughest shit I’ve ever done. When I was pregnant and gave birth, I honestly just kinda swung it. I let things happen as they did. I didn’t have a lot of support. I was a pregnant high-school student who was pregnant by another teenager who was about to go to jail for selling drugs. I was the epitome of society’s view of failure.

You can read the rest of her piece, Thanks, Dude: HEATHER JACKSON, A (Formerly) Teen Mom On Raising A Teenager, here.